He had tried to reason with her, but who had ever reasoned with Caroline? She was his creature; he had sought to mould her; he had failed; but he could not forget her as he had seen her at thirteen and later when they had married – slim, boyish, with the short golden hair and the enormous wild eyes; she exasperated but she enchanted. She was a tragedy to herself and to him; but he supposed he could never be unmoved by her.
So he had capitulated and when the lawyers had come with the papers for him to sign they had found them together, she laughing, insisting on feeding him with thin slices of bread and butter.
‘The papers are ready for your signature,’ he had been told, and she had watched him, puckish, impudent and pleading all at once.
‘Take them away,’ he had said. ‘We have no need of them now.’
Then she had danced and flung her arms about his neck and had been passionate and gay – and mad of course, always mad.
But when it transpired that during those nights she had shut herself away she had been writing a novel, this was too much even for him to forgive. For the book told the story of herself, her husband and Lord Byron, highly exaggerated and romanticised. How could she have done this? It seemed as though she had deliberately sought ways and means of humiliating him and destroying them both. He had only learned of the book’s existence when it was on the point of being published and he went to her at once. ‘It can’t be true,’ he had cried. ‘You could not be so foolish.’
She had given him that puckish look as she retorted: ‘Haven’t you yet learned that there is no end to my foolishness?’
‘I have stood by you through great difficulties,’ he had told her then. ‘But if it is true that this novel is published I will never see you again.’
And he left her sobbing, wildly begging him not to desert her, but the book was published; all their friends, all his political enemies read it. It had indeed been more than any man could endure. Yet once more he had given way.
He recalled vividly the day when his mother had died; he could feel even at that moment the numbed desolation which had sent him to his books, his only consolation and refuge against the blows with which life was buffeting him. She had left him the stately old mansion of Brocket Hall near Hatfield and there he took Caroline with poor Augustus their son. Lord Melbourne, his mother’s husband, joined them; and in the quiet of the country he had tried to bring some serenity into his life. He had devoted himself to Augustus, trying with great patience to awaken the boy’s intelligence. When his son had uttered an intelligent sentence it had been a good day. His devotion to his son and his passion for the classics he supposed now had been his salvation. If only Caroline could have subdued her wild nature, if only she would have allowed him to be at peace, he could have made a tolerable life for them all. But being Caroline how could she? She grew wilder; she wrote more books; and his friends declared that she was making her husband the laughing stock of the country.
Then, in the year 1824, she chanced to be out riding when a funeral cortège came into sight. When she asked whose it was and was told ‘Lord Byron’s’ she had burst into hysterical tears, and collapsing with passionate grief had been brought home in a state of raving madness. After that she had been ill for months and when she had recovered a little of her physical health she no longer wished to visit London. She would be a recluse, she had said, and stayed in her own apartments at the Hall, not emerging for days. She had not come down to the dining-room; remains of meals which she would not allow the servants to remove had littered her bedroom; she tore the curtains at her windows and let them hang in rents; she kept bottles of brandy in her room – under the bed, in cupboards, on the mantelpiece, anywhere which would hold them; she would weep all day and then her hysterical laughter would be heard all over the house; and all the time she had been writing her books and diaries and the theme which ran through them all was her relationship with Lord Byron and William Lamb.
He marvelled at the manner in which he had been able to come through and find his way back into politics. He had seen that his mother was right when she had insisted that if he were going to lead a successful public life there must be a legal separation from Caroline. Caroline, shut in her room, taking liberal doses of laudanum to make her sleep and brandy to make her gay, had listened dully when he told her that it was now inevitable, and had not seemed to understand. When she discovered what had happened she had declared but without vehemence: ‘My heart is broken.’
Even then he had not deserted her. He was often at Brocket Hall. There had been his son Augustus to be cared for and he had gone on hoping that one day he would find the key to unlock what he believed to be that latent intelligence. At least the boy was gentle, unlike his mother, although the taint she had passed on had affected his brain.
So, there had been politics which began to absorb him. Canning, the new Prime Minister, had given him his first government post. Chief Secretary for Ireland was a long way from being Prime Minister but at least he was in the Government and that was an indication that the barren years were over. He was not free from Caroline then but the bonds were slackening; down at Brocket Hall she was drinking heavily and taking laudanum to forget her sorrows; and he was not surprised when he was summoned back because she was dying. She was forty-two. ‘Oh God!’ he had cried, ‘what a waste of a life.’
He was glad that he was in time to see her alive and that her last hours were lucid.
‘Oh, William Lamb,’ she had cried while the tears slipped down her cheeks and her sunken hazel eyes were mournful, ‘what have I done to you?’
She must not fret, he had told her. The past was forgotten and forgiven. He loved her. He always would love her. No woman would mean to him what she had always been.
And she had smiled, happier perhaps than she had ever been in her frenzied attachments.
She was buried in Hatfield Church; he could only feel sorrow although he now was free. No longer would there be this force to undermine him, to humiliate him, to shatter his hopes.
Lord Melbourne had died soon after, and he succeeded to the title. He came home from Ireland and was often at Brocket Hall with Augustus. It had been a peaceful household now that Caroline was dead; the boy had looked forward to his visits, and had been better when he came; and always he had hopes of awakening his intelligence. Sometimes he had dreamed of having a son who could discuss the classics with him – an absurd dream. If Augustus could have read the simplest children’s book and understood it he would have been grateful enough.
And then scandal again when an Irish peer, Lord Brandon, brought a case against him. It was true he had been rather friendly with Lady Brandon. He had always liked the society of women, and after Caroline’s death had acquired a growing circle of women friends. A member of the Government to be involved in such an affair (‘improper intimacy with Lady Brandon’ was the charge) would almost inevitably be death to his career. In consternation he had employed the best possible lawyer and the case had been dismissed by the Lord Chief Justice who had stated that no one could give a word of proof against Lord Melbourne.
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his brow at the memory of that affair. But it was nothing of course compared with that which came later. He had been friendly with the Nortons for some time, when in 1830 Lord Grey took office and had offered him the post of Secretary for Home Affairs. The Honourable George Norton was a Tory but he had a beautiful young wife, Caroline (ill-fated name), who was a Whig. Caroline Norton was the granddaughter of the playwright Sheridan and magnificently equipped both mentally and physically. Tall, dark, with enormous luminous eyes, and a voluptuous figure, she had become a well-known personality, and Lord Melbourne had found her very attractive. He had visited the Nortons frequently and was known as a friend of them both.